RPS Asks: What Aren’t You Playing?

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It’s going to be a little quiet here with today being a day of rest for both Britons and foreigners around the world. As such there’s going to be a lot of gaming going on. But what aren’t you playing? What have you left in the pile that you really must get around to? What did you buy in the sale that you haven’t had time for? What did you get that always seems to be slipping down the list? Which games are you leaving behind?

I’m not playing a lot of games, including Far Cry 3, Dead Island: Riptide, Tomb Raider, Dead Space 3. Indeed, my Steam, Origin, Desura, GamersGate, GMG, GOG and whatever else are littered with games I haven’t played and I want to. Around a thousand of the buggers.

Never have the time, I’m at work today. I’ve got Van Helsing and Darkfall to review. Review copies of games get in the way more than anything else! Other such stuff in life to do.

This is how I play as well. Now and then I revisit the islands just to mess around for a bit. So far I’ve appreciated the auto save system, since I’m never really giving it any thoughts. I simply run around with my bow like a sneaky headless chicken (which is a thing). I do hate the fall damage though. Oh, and the sharks give me the creeps!

I got a few hours in, cleared a portion of the first island, and dropped it.

Clearing the bases was fun. But after the first few it just felt empty and unsatisfying. I think about the gameplay of FC3 and I should like it. But whenever consider booting the game back up it just feels like a chore. I just don’t care. The mechanics are good. But these days I rarely can enjoy a game just for the mechanics.

Perhaps it’s because the writing is so bad and characters unlikable in any way in FC3. And the meta-story stuff is so forced and deeply flawed it fails at giving the bad surface-story a reason to be enjoyed.

I think I need the artifice of the story. I’ve replayed Red Faction: Guerrilla many times, enjoying every minute of its b-movie schlock storyline. Even if it’s b-movie schlock, as long as it’s well done b-movie schlock, it makes the otherwise fun but empty-of-purpose mechanics work for me.

Here! I got a few more hours out of Far Cry 3 by installing one of the mods that lets you turn off all the remaining HUD elements, but even then I couldn’t make it all the way to the end because of the DULL story and uninteresting, hateful characters.

My Steam log, however, would have you believe that I’ve put over 120 hours into the game, which is a slight exaggeration (I’d say it’s more like 8-10). This is because I very often, and unintentionally, left Uplay running after I’d quit the game and Steam records the Uplay session and not the game.

Far Cry 3 has everything you would want in a game, it’s mechanics are great, there is plenty to do and it looks fantastic. But I too am struggling to finish it and I can not work out why. The only thing I can think of is it has no charm but even that feeling is a bit of a cop out as I can’t describe why it has no charm.

I find that I just don’t engage with the characters at all. Moreover, I don’t like the pacing of the narrative. I agree though, solid mechanics, I love the stealth elements, the hunting, the weapon upgrades etc. I have finished it though, wasn’t overly bothered by the endings.

Because you always feel like you’re playing the mechanics directly, rather than doing whatever it is they’re supposed to represent. The game never lets you forget that it’s a game.

You don’t scavenge for plants, the mini-map points them out.
You don’t hunt, the map and the hunting drug turn it into a shopping trip.
You don’t explore, you just go tower to tower and suffer the climbing mini-game.
Etc.

This is a growing problem, especially with Ubisoft games, which tends to give them a soulless MMO / Facebook grindy feel. I feel like I’m playing a map and an XP counter, and rather than enjoying the experience of being in this world/situation they’ve created, all I’m thinking is “What’s the most efficient way to get through this?”

You make a fair point, it’s the reason I stopped playing assassins creed. I have high hopes for Watch Dogs as it uses an interesting new concept. But then I learnt you have to activate a server to use functions in it’s area (read get viewpoint, capture base etc). I fear this may creep into Watch Dogs and ruin it :S

Far Cry 3 is one of those bizarre scenarios where everyone seems to agree that it’s story was terrible, the HUD was far too intrusive, and the gameplay was repetitive, and yet it was almost universally praised.

I’m not sure if repetitive gameplay is a particularly common complaint – mediocre and linear story missions and the fact that you eventually run out of stuff to do seem to be more common (the latter and the HUD issues were mostly addressed by patches, from what I’ve heard).

Also, I think FC3 is very much on the tail end of the popularity polynomial right now. There’s a tendency for the tone of conversation around games to get more and more negative the further you get from launch, something about it generally being easier to talk about the flaws of something than to wax lyrical about how you enjoyed it. I also think that the majority of people who enjoyed something don’t tend to stick around to talk about it, particularly with a contained experience like a single player game.

That’s not to say that any game should be immune to criticism six months later, but there tends to be a bit of an echo chamber effect that transforms “this game was somewhat disappointing” to “this game is literally worse that Hitler” (*coughME3cough*).

I dunno, while I am nowhere near done, I am enjoying it so far in low bursts. The disguise system doesn’t bother me that much, in fact i think it is a step in the right direction. The rating system however, is atrocious and a huge slap in the face for every compulsive silent assassin rate hording Hitman fan ever. However, even that seems to have a silver lining in it, for me at least.

Don’t. There’s only a couple times after the first level I can remember that even comes close to actual Hitman gameplay. While a flood of bad corridor “stealthing” and hiding behind counters. Oh, and forced endings to missions through cutscenes. And the grindhouse vibe gets simultaneously more oppressive while remaing out-of-place for a Hitman game. The devs really should of just made Kane and Lynch 3 or something. It’s the game Absolution feels like it actually wants to be.

Go reinstall Blood Money or Contracts. Time much better spent, if spending time wacking people is what you seek.

At least I am buying less crazily in recent times. I don’t buy all the bundles anymore, and the combination of “There is a slight possibility that this game might be fun” and “It’s on sale” does no longer equate “Buy!” for me.

Yep, same here. To be fair, a lot of them aren’t unplayed, they’re just… un-started. I’ve taken the time to configure the graphics and controls and maybe played a couple of minutes to make sure they’re set up the way I want, but then they sit there, unloved.

If you’d asked me this an hour ago I’d have said “Alan Wake”. Sadly, an hour of rolling eyes, bleeding ears, and wincing frustration has led to me reinstalling Alpha Protocol of all things. Gonna try the rookie mode.

Alan Wake now joins LA Noire, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Deus Ex, and Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines in the pile of games that I find too damn boring and unfun to soldier forth in.

I think you’ll find that Stephen Fry – actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, activist, and board member of Norwich City Football Club – is as close to perfect as his modesty will allow.

Can’t stand the voice acting and the fact that I have to wait for the actors to deliver their lines to be able to play – it just kills the pace for the purely narrative segments.

Then I find the control, camera and so far overall level design to be clunky and unpleasant – and not in a “designed to be that way” way.

Add to that that I don’t really see where the game is going with its mix of narrative and gameplay (is that supposed to be horror or action ? Both parts don’t really compliment each other.) And playing this mostly feels like a chore I have to go through to be able to actually have a proper critical conversation about it with friends…

I also stopped playing Deus Ex HR after a few hours. I couldn’t stomach the voice acting, and I found the combat to be boring. Also, the subdued yellow color palette just didn’t appeal to me. I was majorly disappointed, because all the reviews led me to believe that it should have been one of the best gaming experiences in years!

Now I just bought Alan Wake in the Pay What You Want sale… I hope it will be a better experience, fingers crossed!

You’ll likely enjoy Alan Wake if you enjoy the idea of playing through a Stephen King novel, with Max Payne 1 &amd 2 nordic references and meta-commentary TV shows thrown in. Mind you, the writing and dialogue is the level of Stephen King. Purposefully, I hope. I roll my eyes or gag at a line at various times, while somehow continuing to enjoy the atmosphere of evil infecting a small town.

The primary mechanic shooting is simple, but fun.

The novel pages are fun to read (again, if you’re into alternate universe meta-reflections of the story you’re in). Don’t bother with the coffee thermoses. They are annoyingly useless.

I ended up really liking Alan Wake in the end, but I sometimes found myself (especially toward the beginning) actively wishing I was doing something else during the long slogs of shooting the same three dudes over and over.

That’s really too bad about two of those. Deus Ex, both the original and HR are very well regarded and really good games. Bloodlines was amazingly fantastic. I played this one 4 times. It’s just too bad the company went out of business trying to publish it, and suffered because of lack of advertising and support. It needs the fan patch to make some of it work well. They’re both RPGs. I believe LA is one, too, but I don’t know about LOTR, although I’ve never played either. Maybe RPGs are just not your thing. The original Deus Ex is still considered a great story and very good game. I don’t even know how many times I played this. Several. The story is still fun to go through, though.

I want to play Bloodlines, but I just can’t fix the terrible FOV! I’ve tried all the usual config changes but it still sits at 75 or something horrible like that, and anything less than 90 is a no go for me. I’ve wanted to play it for years, but now it just sits in my Steam catalogue, sulking like a teenage goth.

Alan Wake had one of the clumsiest tutorials I’d ever seen. Not that it didn’t teach anything, but for a story based game, they really had no clue how to fit it into the story. Also those pages of the novel are horrendously written. It’s like a first draft that’s had spelling mistakes removed.

Regardless, I’m finally getting around to clearing out my ‘still to play’ list. Finally played and finished Gemini Rue yesterday. Planning on finishing Pathologic later today. Then it’s just System Shock 2 sitting there.

Doing that has kept me from buying and playing some recent big releases. Metro: Last Light and Zeno Clash 2. That is completely ignoring a bunch of games I bought but never really intended to seriously play in the first place. And I guess I still have a playthrough of Tactics Ogre on PSP that’s been dragging for a year now. I’ll get back to that eventually… probably…

I think the two most notable games I’m currently not playing are BioShock Infinite and Dishonoured – I really should play through them at least once…I just don’t feel like getting into such rich worlds at the moment.

Dishonoured is definitely worth a look, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve not tried Neverwinter, I had a look at doing it at one point but someone had pinched my name (Draridan) and this made me sad, so I didn’t get round to it.

Heh, I’m in the same camp, but my distraction is just Skyrim (and a few indie games when I tire of that). I’m trying to work my way through the main quest, but there are so many other interesting things to do! It’ll be nice to switch to a more focused game like Binfinite once I’m “done”.

I started Sleeping dogs and hitman: absolution, but than I bought Brutal legend and Mark of the ninja. Finished brutal (enjoyed it, despite so many flaws) and about to finish Mark (much better than I expected and my expectations were very high).

After MoTN I will probably go back to sleeping dogs, but maybe I’ll just go and finish Borderland 2…

No i haven’t, i usually don’t buy DLCs so i didn’t consider them this time either. Will give it a shot this summer sale, Sleeping Dogs DLCs go for a dollar or a two at times (we get the Steam USA prices here).

I have about 80 or so hours in Sleeping Dogs. One play through. I really love the game. I got it on sale not too long after it released, and I still play it. I love it. I’ve even purchased several DLC which I don’t normally do.

I feel worse about this than I should given that I have a busy life and all, but I still haven’t gotten around to both Deus Ex: HR and The Witcher 2. It really hurt me to write this since Deus Ex the first is my favorite game of all, but maybe this will give me the motivation I need.

Those are two games I really want to play more too. I’ve played both of them a bit and I really like them both, but I don’t seem to have the ability to really play AAA games intensively like those games deserve any more. Games with clearly-defined mission structures like Mass Effect 3 I could manage.

They’re the sort of games that when I was younger (not much younger, really; I could do it with Witcher 1) I’d start up in the morning and play all day without doing anything else. Those days seem to be behind me now.

I nearly got around to playing Hegemony – Wars of Ancient Greece over the weekend, but the weather was too nice to sit down for a long play, so I wound up playing a couple of short sessions of Seven Grand Steps instead.

I myself will probably not play most games. Since I have a 12-hour workday ahead of me :D

But my pile is pretty gigantic. I have been slowly going through a bit of a backlog but there’s a bunch left to play. And I really should get to all those adventure games that I’ve piled up. I always say I like adventure games but I never actually play them…

Huh. For some reason I’d always thought bank holidays were people having a day off work so they could handle their important stuff (like, go to the bank), but apparently that’s not the case. Today I learned.

‘Bank holiday’ is a bit misleading. if i remember correctly its actually a ‘banked holiday’. its to do with the industrial revolution and factories giving staff a paid day off work. nothing to do with banks as institutions at all.

I thought that the bank holidays originally existed to give banks a day off so that they could do all their accounting. Before computers were invented all their financial sums had to be worked out by hand on paper, so the purpose of the holiday was to give them a day where no additional money business was being done so that they could catch up with their clerical work and keep the books up to date. Of course, now that computers do all that instantaneously, a bank holiday is just an extra day off.

Lol, full marks for revisionist etymology, comrade. “Bank holiday” became a term in 1871 due to banks being shut on those days. There is nothing more to it. When the revolution comes then you can change it. “banked holiday” seems only to exist as a term in some employment contracts as a way to describe accrued leave, that’s probably where you saw it.

It does kind of make sense to have a holiday on the same say as the US, especially if the alternative is having one on another day, and thereby having two days during which you can’t do business with the Yanks. It’s also good when you work for a company that has offices in both countries, finally a day when you know who’s on holiday and who isn’t :)

I’ve still got Mass Effect, Far Cry 2 and Psychonauts on my steam library, unloved. I’ve got Bioshock 2 and Fallout 3 actually installed but can’t be arsed wrestling with the technical problems that stopped me playing in the first place.
Mostly any such effort starts well and end shortly after as I give up and play some Red Faction Guerrilla and blow things up for a while.

I’m not playing Resident Evil: Revelations (got the 3DS version), Sleeping Dogs and about a dozen older games I’ve installed during the last few months only to play an hour of before reverting to Dota 2. Resident Evil 4, STALKER: SoC, Escape From Butcher Bay (I’ve finished this before so not high on my “priority” list), Alpha Protocol, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory…

Until I slay those (or play enought to say “nah, I’m not really having fun”) I wont allow myself to buy new games. Sadly, I’ve been on an action mood lately, so I don’t really want to play any of them right now.

Yggdra Union on the Gameboy Advance. No, don’t ask me to pronounce it. I’m actually convinced it’s one of the best tactical RPGs of all time – I know it’s a heresy, but it’s kind of more interesting than Advance Wars in some ways, and a dramatic improvement on something like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

It does that SMT: Devil Survivor thing of taking the TRPG template and almost seamlessly splicing in another layer of game to the, uh, game. In this case, it abstractly promotes positioning to be the central mechanic, allowing you to make wholesale changes to the composition of any engagement by organising units in increasingly elaborate patterns on the overmap. Stalwart genre notions of adjacency and unit ‘range’ are gleefully defenestrated. It’s TBS with square-dancing, essentially.

The only problem is it has this absolutely brutal mechanic of making you consume hard-earned (and irreplaceable) equipment to restore your units’ health between battles. Not potions or health kits, but armour and weapons and all that cool stuff! So I inevitably try to be tight and get by with units on a sliver of health, and then of course they all get wiped out. So I’ve been giving it a petulant cold shoulder. Even though I love it the greedy min/maxer in me just can’t bring myself to play it (correctly).

Oh, um, right, this is a PC site. Well then, anything, basically. This rig is over 10 years old.

As you’re clearly into handheld tactics, I suggest you try Rebelstar: Tactical Command. It’s an anime X-Com that, though it cuts away all the base (mis)management in favour of linear level progression, gets the titular tactics perfect. It’s a sort-of incarnation of Speccy classic Rebelstar, though you wouldn’t think it from the aesthetic. As you can clearly stand Eastern trappings, it might just be your thing.

I’ve played Yggdra Union in eons past, when the earth was young and the ancients walked the world (so 6-7 years, I think).

I don’t remember much of it, but I think I played half the campaign and had a lot of fun, until the healing mechanic got me. I had completed a mission with so much damage to my units that healing them all would have taken most of my supplies, and I felt like I was in a situation in which it was no longer possible to win the game. I don’t remember if you cannot go back a mission, or if I simply did not want to repeat the last mission, but I just stopped playing there.

Ah, that’s kind of discouraging to hear! Especially with the introduction of out-of-combat AoEs that can hit anywhere on the map and knock ~20% off a bunch of your units, making it impossible to avoid damage even through smart play. You get multiple save slots, but if you aren’t juggling them I can definitely see the ‘no-win’ scenario happening – something the game itself makes far from obvious.

I think I will give it a few more goes before I give up on it completely, though. It’s just so intriguing and… fresh.

Shen-ji, Kasab: Thanks for the recommendations! Fire Emblem I have played. Really solid series. Rebelstar is completely new to me, though. I will have to see if I can track down a copy!

I’ve actually been playing a lot fo this lately. PIck a nation that’s fairly self-playing – the States is a good example. The main difference between EU3 (if that’s your entry point, as it was mine) is that you sometimes have control over factories and thus production. And actually production is the most important thing in the world.

It’s pretty fun, actually.

So I am playing Victoria 2 and the beta for 7 Grand Steps (which is a little boring but also surprisingly awesome). I’m not playing Walking Dead Episode 3, because E2 took me 3 months to mentally prepare for. Also not playing Eador: Masters blah blah blah, but I’ll get back to it eventually. But I probably won’t get back to SimCity 4.

Similar experience with Crusader Kings II. Enjoyed learning to play, but found I had to play in one sitting to get the most from it, losing drive and focus if I start from a save.

I’ve got 3 kids, so it could be weeks or months between suitable time slots to sit down with these.
These games need to prompt you for a notepad/journal entry when you save so that you can write down your big picture strategy and intrigues for next time.

Oh, this too. I’m not quite sure it’s the right game for me (played maybe eight hours so far), so it may be left to rot on my hard drive for eternity. I’ll probably have another go at some point, though I guess I could just wait for the sequel and its proper PC version.

I’ve put around 40 hours into Dark Souls, and am enjoying it immensely, and although I’m awful at it, the exploration of the world is absolutely awesome (which is probably why I’m busy doing my master thesis on just that). I do suck at most bosses though. The best advice for anyone considering firing it up for the first time would be to avoid any kind of gameplay video and lore discussions – you’re in for a treat.

I love the world, it’s such a rich lore. A lot of my friends were put off by the difficulty but I try to sell it to people on the law basis. It’s also really pretty, There are many moments I love in it, and I’m not even that far in yet!

I’ve done everything but the Four Kings in the lead up to the final section, but bugger me if I’m going to finish it. What Dark Souls is great at is making the player feel trapped: I /have/ to do in the Four Kings, but another descent into that swirling mire of crippled depth perception is something I can’t face. I end up perched on the steps, behind me a mass of angry Darkwraiths and ahead the final challenge before the real final challenge. It’s brilliant stuff, but I haven’t gone back to it in about a month. I’ve sunk 80 hours into the thing and that was without a controller.

Ah yes, O&S- or, as I came to call them, ‘F***face and Fatty’. Not very witty, I know, but I was at my wit’s end.

You don’t need cheese to win, though. Like most bosses in DS, they’re not so bad once once you get the hang of them. If you can kill Ornstein quickly with pyromancy or a flame weapon, Smough is mostly a matter of spacing and careful use of pillars if you use magic or ranged weapons.

Sadly, Dishonored. Someday I’ll get back to it, I’m sure. On another note: WHERE IS MY STARDRIVE WIT? Sorry, had to shout – every journo at RPS seems to be deaf or hard of hearing about this one. Or, (I wish) gentlemen Tim Stone and Alec Meer are playing it to their game-induced transe, after which we will be presented with glorious WIT. I want to read about Spacebears(TM)!
EDIT: Caption for the picture above goes:
Remember, turn on the count of ten and then discharge your pistol promptly and precisely into the opposing top hat.

For some reason, I read this headline in the most accusing voice possible.

*RPS looks at my monitor*
“Oh my god! WHAT are you playing? Don’t you know better than that? Your mom would be ashamed of you if she knew!” – “I’m sorry RPS! It’s not what it looks like! My cat stepped on my keyboard and accidentally installed, started and played the game!”

On topic, I’m playing Grim Dawn and, more or less due to peer pressure, the slaughter that is LoL. Playing with guys against easy bots is fine, but everything above that (i.e. intermediate or *gasp* real people) and I almost always experience instant death as soon as I so much as see an enemy champion. I’m not sure I can stomach the frustration of that long enough to climb the learning curve, especially when the more experienced people in your party think they’re good guys teaching you something and barking orders and the most ridiculous hints at you.

“You should have run away, once X starts ability Y you have no chance” – “Gee, really? Thanks for the hint! Obviously I *chose* being slowed, stunned and slowed again because I thought that was the superior strategy to reach my end goal. Next time I might consider the running thing, if I’m not already killing them with my slowness!”

I recently uninstalled xcom because I had played 90h and beaten it on classic/ironman. Less than a week later the itch for more has become unbearable and I am redownloading it for a impossible/ironman game.

DX:HR. I want to like it, and (ignoring the bosses) it does a lot right, but I just can’t get interested in it.

I mean on paper it’s got everything – the hacking, codes, stealth options, interesting inventory trade-offs, exploration and dialog sections. I think perhaps it’s the level design. After a few hours it all started to get very formulaic – a series of ‘big’ rooms linked by a ‘shoot everyone’ corridor and a stealth entrance (usually an air vent).

Yeah, I kinda find it a testament to how starved we are for certain kind of games that some flaws in level design HR shares with IW, and for which the latter got trounced, the former got barely criticized for.

Just to point out, you can stealth the entire game, as I did. No kills. There’s actually an achievement for it, too, so they’re just saying it’s possible. There are some areas where you have to stun then, but it’s WAY more than possible to go through most of it without touching anyone at all, if you’re good. Most people aren’t that good, though, and complain it’s just another shooter, when it can be played as a stealth. It reminded me very much of the first and also Thief series.

Dark Souls. I’m stuck on the Ornstein and Smoug boss fight, and beating my way through giants and silver knights over and over again only to get my ass immediately handed to me on a lightning lance is discouraging, to say the least.

Also, Bioshock Infinite, which I desperately want to play but cannot afford. ‘Tis a shame.

I find it hard to defend Dark Souls, because it is, in many ways, a conventionally awful game. Yet it’s so completely mesmerisingly good at tantalising you with victory I can’t help but love it. Plus the sense of place is astonishing. It reminds me of playing Resident Evil for the first time: it’s definitely not a real place, but it’s one you want to spend time in anyway, like a folly.

If you’re got the dexterity and the arrows, it’s possible to cheese through the fight. Once you’ve taken out one of them, you can circle around a broken pillar at medium range. Hopefully they’ll keep attacking at you but get blocked by the scenery, allowing you to shoot arrows over it into their dumb AI face. Cheap as hell, but invaluable on a NG++ when I couldn’t find any phantoms to summon due to my level.

1. Skyrim, Oblivion didn’t click with me but I loved FO3 and F:NV so I am really looking forward to Skyrim. However, it’s going to be a 10 hour processes just to get it properly modded up for my first playthough so I keep putting it off.
2. Any graphically intensive game. I am considering a upgrade from GTX 570 SLI to GTX 770 SLI. Until I decide I am putting off games like Crysis and a 2nd playthough of The Witcher 2.
3. Uncharted, I loved the Jak games and I hear great things about the uncharted series but every time I play Uncharted 1 find myself stopping frequently and switching to other titles.

I’ve rudely put both Far Cry 3 and Need For Speed Most Wanted on hold whilst I play Star Wars Galaxies. The emulator project’s pretty much complete now, so I’ve stumbled back into a life I left behind some 7-8 years ago. I will at least install Far Cry, though, so its there for when I get tired of the endless grinding.

All three of you: get on it now! Just finished it, and it’s a slow ponder, but if you’re in the mood for something laid back, thought provoking, genuinely funny, honest and tender, play To the Moon as soon as you can.

I am back playing EVE, so that means I am not playing… Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Nor any of the other AAA games I missed during the past couple of years, like Disnohored, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3, X-COM etc.

Playing Dragon Age Origins for the first time such a great game. I came in expecting a decent r.p.g, planning to halfheartedly play through the story and move on. Ended up being amazed at how good the writing, combat and story. Going through my second play through now :)

Though I haven’t bought them yet, Zeno Clash 2 and Don’t Starve appeal to me greatly. However Nathan’s WiT of Zeno Clash 2 has put me in two minds about it and my only concern about Don’t Starve is how wiki-reliant like Minecraft it may be (or is almost every recipe visible in the side menu? I’m not entirely sure).
In terms of what I do own and happen to be neglecting the most, Baldur’s Gate. I bought it in a pack recently and kept failing to get into it. Maybe I just need to read the manual; something that the teenage me would have devoured long before even installing the game but the current me seems to have been trained to avoid.

All I’m playing really is the same as the last 12 months: DOTA2, Street Fighter, and recently got Metro:LL onto the list, but it’s in danger of moving into the second category.

I have a few games that I recognise as being excellent’, but for some reason find no urge to play such as Guild Wars 2 & Monaco.

And then I have a pile that are ‘okay/decent’, and yet I don’t launch them either; I’ve certainly not finished them, and I doubt I will beyond fulfilling some internal compulsion to justify my purchases:
Hitman, Borderlands 2, Crysis 3, The Witcher 2 (I must have TRIED to play this a dozen times, and every time I just drift away, I don’t even know why!) Far Cry 3.

I’m trying to clear my backlog these days, but even in a good pace, I won’t be playing NOLF 1, Armed and Dangerous and Escape Goat anytime soon.

Oh, and Metro: LL as well, since after having a ton of fun with Blood Dragon, I don’t want to plummet myself into a deeply depressing atmosphere of a game.

Oh wait, and Carmageddon. I just saw some gameplay from the GOG edition, and man, nostalgia hit me pretty hard.

Wait, did I say a fun racing game? Driver: San Fransisco is there too, sitting on my shelf. I played it for 6 hours and enjoyed it tremendously, but took a break when Max Payne 3 came out, and never really went back. :(

Today is obviously opposite day, because we don’t get a holiday today in Ireland, and also I’ve managed to buy a game over the weekend and in a dramatic break with tradition, actually play it. That game is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the purchase of which you can 100% attribute to the RPS wot I think earlier in the week. I’d never even heard of it before then.

As to what I’m not playing, I only got about two or three levels into Dishonored and found myself unable to face another few hours of picking up coins and tins of jellied eels and failing at stealth. I also have a few hours invested in DXHR, which I’m more interested in finishing, but haven’t started in at least two months. I reinstalled Rage while on a man shooty bender, but quickly gave it up for Bad Company 2 which I played through and then immediately played through again. Never done that before. Great game!

And then I have several games installed on the PC that I’ve only played a small amount into, or not at all. Space games Mass Effect, Freespace 2, Freelancer, Elite and Frontier; Thief (which I gave up on once I found myself running from acid spitting dinosaurs in a big cave. that was not what I signed up for); Chronicles of Riddick which I very nearly almost finished once; Achronox which looked promising if a little dated; the original Deus Ex (Shhhh! don’t tell!); System Shock which seemed very dated but reminded me a bit of my beloved Daggerfall; Skyrim which I invested at least 20 hours in but never finished the main quest arc; Splinter Cell : Chaos Theory and Double Agent (started the latter after forgetting I never finished the former), the HL2 mods Black Mesa, Minerva, Mission Improbable, Dear Esther and Human Error;the indie games Thirty Flights of Loving, Symon, Home, Gravity, Amnesia, Stranded in Singapore, SuperMeatBoy, VVVVV, Strongbad’s Cool Game For Attractive People; the adventure games Gemini Rue & Resonance; the LucasArts classics Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and The Dig which I’m ashamed to say I’ve never finished; Sid Meiers Pirates; Mount and Blade; Project Zomboid (on a zombie note I would love to try Day Z but I can’t find a cheap copy of ARMA and I feel like I’d just die endlessly); the increasingly interesting Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines; the first two Fallout games; Terranova – Strike Force Centauri and Azrael’s Tear (those two games are linked in my mind – is there any connection?); XCOM: Enemy Unknown and also Jagged Alliance 1 & 2; from the STALKER series Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, and on a related tangent Metro 2033 (got to the haunted aeroplane); The Saboteur – installed only. Haven’t even fired up; Crysis 2 – I came this close to the end I swear; Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah: Might & Magic and The Witcher which I must play before another Elder Scrolls game comes along.

But more seriously, FS2+Source Code Project+MediaVPs+Joystick/Controller= Best space sim/shooter (game?) of all time. Technically too. Heck, that would be vanilla FS2 on it’s own.

And you can even play FS1 (via the FSPort remake, though that doesn’t play nice with the most recent FSOpen build), Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius and War in Heaven (brilliant community campaigns/mods), Wing Commander Total conversion, Battlestar Galactica, Diaspora, Star Wars (mods only, though)…whatever you want.

Appreciate the suggestions. FS2 is definitely the game I am always “not playing”. It’s been sitting firmly in my GOG Collection for some years now, and I desperately need to get around to it. It always sounds like the ultimate experience to me yet for some reason I have never even given it a try.